School holiday play wonderlands

COLIN MOORE finds places where children will enjoy themselves - and learn something.

It's the school holidays and children and teachers are happy. So are commuters as they bus or drive to work on hassle-free highways.

As traffic engineers assure us - although gridlocked motorists may find it hard to believe - it only takes a tiny reduction in traffic density to free up our highways. Those missing vehicles doubtless belong to students, parents ferrying children to school and parents who have taken time off work to be with their children.

But there's the rub; what to do with the time and children on your hands? Especially in the second week when they've seen all the movies, read all the books in the library, played every computer game and are fed up with fast food?

To find an answer, Travel asked Ruth Thorn, exhibition and promotions manager at Motat, the Museum of Transport, Technology and Social History, who referred us to her grandson Liam Poole.

Last week young Liam threw himself on the floor outside the museum's "Into the Toy Box" exhibition and refused to leave. The lad is still a tad young for school, but he does know what the big kids and their parents might enjoy.

Motat has put all its historic toys on special display, along with an exhibition of modern toys sponsored by Hasbro NZ.

The Motat collection dates from Betsy, an 1870s doll made of bisque, to a bizarre bubble-blowing elephant made in Japan in the 1950s.

A collection of homemade toys dating from the austerity of the Second World War is particularly popular with older adults. They stand and reminisce at the display of tin-can telephones, cotton-reel tanks, kites made with brown paper and string, and pea-shooters.

The display includes a collection of wooden toys with intricate movements that were made by a post-war Dutch immigrant for his children.

The Hasbro exhibition includes such toys as Teletubbies, Furbies, Thomas the Tank Engine and Tonka toys, which children can play with in a sandpit.

As well, volunteers from Ranui Playcentre have an activity centre where the kids can enjoy face painting, old string games and lessons in French knitting.

"The love of toys is enduring and brings out memories of happy times," says Thorn. "Motat is a comfortable museum. There are lots of things to do here."

* Motat is sustained by 200 working volunteers and community groups.